Manufacturing Magic and Computational Creativity

This paper describes techniques in computational creativity, blending mathematical modeling and psychological insight, to generate new magic tricks. The details of an explicit computational framework capable of creating new magic tricks are summarized, and evaluated against a range of contemporary theories about what constitutes a creative system. To allow further development of the proposed system we situate this approach to the generation of magic in the wider context of other areas of application in computational creativity in performance arts. We show how approaches in these domains could be incorporated to enhance future magic generation systems, and critically review possible future applications of such magic generating computers.

[1]  D. Ahern,et al.  Oncology Informatics: Using Health Information Technology to Improve Processes and Outcomes in Cancer , 2016 .

[2]  Somnuk Phon-Amnuaisuk,et al.  Evolving Musical Harmonisation , 1999, ICANNGA.

[3]  Simon Colton,et al.  The Painting Fool: Stories from Building an Automated Painter , 2012 .

[4]  David Ralley,et al.  Genetic Algorithms as a Tool for Melodic Development , 1995, ICMC.

[5]  Ronald A. Rensink,et al.  The possibility of a science of magic , 2015, Front. Psychol..

[6]  B. Baars.  A cognitive theory of consciousness , 1988 .

[7]  Kai Hakkarainen,et al.  Personal Social Networks and the Cultivation of Expertise in Magic: An Interview Study , 2013 .

[8]  N. Cross.  Designerly Ways of Knowing: Design Discipline Versus Design Science , 2001, Design Issues.

[9]  Gustav Kuhn,et al.  Imaging the impossible: An fMRI study of impossible causal relationships in magic tricks☆ , 2009, NeuroImage.

[10]  Simon Colton,et al.  Computational Creativity: The Final Frontier? , 2012, ECAI.

[11]  Jeremy J. Michalek,et al.  Architectural layout design optimization , 2002 .

[12]  Charles Babbage,et al.  Babbage's Calculating Engines : Being a Collection of Papers Relating to Them; Their History and Construction , 2010 .

[13]  V. Ekroll,et al.  The curious influence of timing on the magical experience evoked by conjuring tricks involving false transfer: decay of amodal object permanence? , 2015, Psychological research.

[14]  StudiesHampshire CollegeAmherst.  Induction and Recapitulation of Deep Musical StructureLee Spector and Adam AlpernSchool of Cognitive Science and Cultural , 2022 .

[15]  Frank Dignum,et al.  The Construction of Impossibility: A Logic-Based Analysis of Conjuring Tricks , 2016, Front. Psychol..

[16]  Alan R. Hevner,et al.  Design Research in Information Systems: Theory and Practice , 2010 .

[17]  Anthony Barnhart,et al.  The Exploitation of Gestalt Principles by Magicians , 2010, Perception.

[18]  J. Rrushi,et al.  Psychology of Deception , 2016 .

[19]  Ronald A. Rensink,et al.  The Vanishing Ball Illusion: A new perspective on the perception of dynamic events , 2016, Cognition.

[20]  Lee Spector,et al.  Induction and Recapitulation of Deep Musical Structure , 1995, IJCAI 1995.

[21]  Vimla L. Patel,et al.  Using usability heuristics to evaluate patient safety of medical devices , 2003, J. Biomed. Informatics.

[22]  J. Henderson,et al.  Where Science and Magic Meet: The Illusion of a “Science of Magic” , 2010 .

[23]  Stanley Wasserman,et al.  Social Network Analysis: Social Network Analysis in the Social and Behavioral Sciences , 1994 .

[24]  Michael F. Land,et al.  There's more to magic than meets the eye , 2006, Current Biology.

[25]  Norman Triplett,et al.  The Psychology of Conjuring Deceptions , 1900 .

[26]  Peter M. Nardi.  TOWARD A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF ENTERTAINMENT MAGIC (CONJURING) , 1984 .

[27]  Alan R. Hevner,et al.  Design Research in Information Systems , 2010 .

[28]  A. A. Hopkins,et al.  Magic; Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography , 1897 .

[29]  Daniel J. Simons,et al.  Current Approaches to Change Blindness , 2000 .

[30]  Richard Wiseman.  Towards a psychology of deception. , 1996 .

[31]  J. Wagemans,et al.  The Put-and-Fetch Ambiguity: How Magicians Exploit the Principle of Exclusive Allocation of Movements to Intentions , 2015, i-Perception.

[32]  Marcus T. Pearce,et al.  The construction and evaluation of statistical models of melodic structure in music perception and composition , 2005 .

[33]  A. M. Turing,et al.  Computing Machinery and Intelligence , 1950, The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence.

[34]  Peter W. McOwan,et al.  An adaptive methodology for synthesising mobile phone games using genetic algorithms , 2005, 2005 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation.

[35]  Aldert Vrij,et al.  The psychology of deception , 2001 .

[36]  Tony Veale,et al.  Comprehending and Generating Apt Metaphors: A Web-driven, Case-based Approach to Figurative Language , 2007, AAAI.

[37]  Howard E. Gruber,et al.  Contemporary approaches to creative thinking : a symposium held at the University of Colorado , 1962 .

[38]  Kim Binsted,et al.  Children's evaluation of computer-generated punning riddles , 1997 .

[39]  Elaine Chew,et al.  A Hybrid System for Automatic Generation of Style-Specific A ccompaniment , 2007 .

[40]  Nir Friedman,et al.  Probabilistic Graphical Models: Principles and Techniques - Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning , 2009 .

[41]  C. Koch,et al.  Computational modelling of visual attention , 2001, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[42]  George Papadopoulos,et al.  A Genetic Algorithm for the Generation of Jazz Melodies , 2000 .

[43]  Ronald A. Rensink,et al.  A framework for using magic to study the mind , 2015, Front. Psychol..

[44]  Costas S. Iliopoulos,et al.  Evolution of Musical Motifs in Polyphonic Passages , 2002 .

[45]  Pedro A. González-Calero,et al.  Poetry Generation in COLIBRI , 2002, ECCBR.

[46]  Brad Johanson,et al.  GP-Music: An Interactive Genetic Programming System for Music Generation with Automated Fitness Raters , 2007 .

[47]  Geraint A. Wiggins.  Searching for computational creativity , 2006, New Generation Computing.

[48]  Ronald A. Rensink,et al.  TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE: The Need for Attention to Perceive Changes in Scenes , 1997 .

[49]  J. Tenenbaum,et al.  Optimal Predictions in Everyday Cognition , 2006, Psychological science.

[50]  Lisa Dresner,et al.  Magic In Theory , 2016 .

[51]  Milbourne Christopher,et al.  The Illustrated History of Magic , 1973 .

[52]  Ben Shneiderman,et al.  Creativity support tools: accelerating discovery and innovation , 2007, CACM.

[53]  Damon Horowitz,et al.  Generating Rhythms with Genetic Algorithms , 1994, AAAI.

[54]  Joao Antonio Pereira,et al.  Linked: The new science of networks , 2002 .

[55]  Geraint A. Wiggins.  The Mind’s Chorus: Creativity Before Consciousness , 2012, Cognitive Computation.

[56]  Ryan A. McIntyre,et al.  Bach in a box: the evolution of four part Baroque harmony using the genetic algorithm , 1994, Proceedings of the First IEEE Conference on Evolutionary Computation. IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence.

[57]  Hugo Gonçalo Oliveira.  Automatic generation of poetry: an overview , 2009 .

[58]  Simon Colton,et al.  Computational Creativity Theory: The FACE and IDEA Descriptive Models , 2011, ICCC.

[59]  Gustav Kuhn,et al.  Misdirection – Past, Present, and the Future , 2012, Front. Hum. Neurosci..

[60]  P. Maurette.  [To err is human: building a safer health system]. , 2002, Annales francaises d'anesthesie et de reanimation.

[61]  Bruce Tog Tognazzini,et al.  Principles, techniques, and ethics of stage magic and their application to human interface design , 1993, INTERCHI.

[62]  Pablo Gervás,et al.  An expert system for the composition of formal Spanish poetry , 2001, Knowl. Based Syst..

[63]  J. O. Robinson.  The Psychology of Visual Illusion , 1972 .

[64]  Francisco Câmara Pereira.  Creativity and Artificial Intelligence , 2007 .

[65]  Stephanie W. Haas.  The Creative Process: A Computer Model of Storytelling and Creativity, by Scott R. Turner , 1996, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[66]  Sang Joon Kim,et al.  A Mathematical Theory of Communication , 2006 .

[67]  Robbie T. Nakatsu,et al.  Rule‐Based Expert Systems , 2009 .

[68]  Kai Hakkarainen,et al.  Expertise among professional magicians: an interview study , 2014, Front. Psychol..

[69]  R. Desimone,et al.  Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. , 1995, Annual review of neuroscience.

[70]  P. Lamont.  Problems with the mapping of magic tricks , 2015, Front. Psychol..

[71]  Geraint A. Wiggins,et al.  A preliminary framework for description, analysis and comparison of creative systems , 2006, Knowl. Based Syst..

[72]  Ronald A. Rensink,et al.  Towards a science of magic , 2008, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[73]  Dorothea Heiss-Czedik,et al.  An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms. , 1997, Artificial Life.

[74]  Peter W. McOwan,et al.  Magic in the machine: a computational magician's assistant , 2014, Front. Psychol..

[75]  John A. Biles,et al.  GenJam: A Genetic Algorithm for Generating Jazz Solos , 1994, ICMC.

[76]  A. M. Turing,et al.  Computing Machinery and Intelligence , 1950, The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence.

[77]  Tony Veale,et al.  Converging on the Divergent: The History (and Future) of the International Joint Workshops in Computational Creativity , 2009, AI Mag..

[78]  Ronald A. Rensink,et al.  A psychologically-based taxonomy of misdirection , 2014, Front. Psychol..

[79]  Allen Newell,et al.  Report on a general problem-solving program , 1959, IFIP Congress.